[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2002, Book I)]
[March 21, 2002]
[Pages 464-467]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks Following a Breakfast Meeting With the Vice President and an Exchange With Reporters
March 21, 2002
The President. Good morning. Thank you all for coming. I just had a
breakfast with Vice President Cheney, and as you all know, he's returned
from a lengthy and successful trip to the Middle East, the first trip I
asked him to go on. I sent him to the region because this is an
incredibly important part of the world, and it's a turbulent part of the
world. And the Vice President took a lot of messages on behalf of our
administration and made some really good progress. I'm really proud of
how he handled himself and how he delivered the message.
As a result of this trip, and as a result of working with General
Zinni, there is some progress being made in
the Middle East. And I want to thank the Vice President for being very
firm and deliberate and convincing both parties that the Tenet plan and
ultimately the Mitchell plan is a way to achieve what we all want in the
world, which is a peaceful resolution to this longstanding conflict.
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But Mr. Vice President, welcome back. Thanks, you did a great job.
The Vice President. Well thank you, Mr. President. It was a good
trip. And as you say, there are a lot of issues on the agenda right now
that are important in that part of the world.
I talked extensively with our friends about the ongoing campaign in
Afghanistan and the war against terror that affects all of us. And
everybody in the region spent a lot of time on the Israeli peace
problems and propositions, the conflict between Israelis and the
Palestinians; obviously, a lot of time on the Iraqi situation and Saddam
Hussein's development of weapons of mass destruction. But I found at
virtually every stop that the United States has great friends and allies
in that part of the world. I also had the opportunity to visit with a
number of our military personnel conducting active operations or
supporting those operations in Afghanistan and the region. So all in
all, it was a great trip. I'm ready to go back there.
The President. Questions? Yes, John [John King, CNN].
Situation in the Middle East
Q. Mr. President, interested in your own calculations when the Vice
President called to discuss the possibility of the Arafat meeting, your
calculations in making the decision to change slightly the
administration's standard for opening the door to a meeting with him.
And Mr. Vice President, do you believe now that meeting will happen? Is
Mr. Arafat keeping his end of the bargain?
The President. Well, first of all, I've always been one that trusts
the judgment of the people I send on a mission. And the Vice President
called me, with General Zinni by his side, and
said, ``There's a chance that we can get into the Tenet security
agreement. And if that were to happen, in my judgment, I think it would
be best if I would then go see Mr. Arafat.''
And I trust the Vice President's judgment. He's a man of enormous
experience who's got a good feel for things, and we both trust General
Zinni. And so the definition of whether or not
he is going to see Mr. Arafat depends upon the
feel for our negotiator, General Zinni. But I think it was the right
thing to do, obviously.
We've set some strong conditions, and we expect Mr. Arafat to meet those conditions. I, frankly, have been
disappointed in his performance. I'm hopeful, however, that he listens
to what the Vice President told him and said that in order for us to
have influence in terms of achieving any kind of peaceful resolution, he
must--he, Mr. Arafat--must do everything in his power to stop the
violence.
The Vice President. Well, as I've said before, John, the key here
will be General Zinni. And he'll make his judgment based on whether or
not Arafat is in fact implementing Tenet, not just promising to
implement but implementing Tenet. If he's doing that, if he's living up
to those requirements, and General Zinni signs off on it, then I'm
prepared to go back almost immediately for a meeting. But it will depend
on whether or not Arafat is complying.
Iraq
Q. Mr. Vice President, on Iraq, the other main item on your agenda,
you said we have a lot of allies out there. But I haven't noticed any of
the Arab states--maybe they say things privately that they don't
publicly; we've long been told that--supporting strong action against
Iraq. They seem to want diplomacy to be given a chance--Annan's efforts,
sanctions, changes, et cetera. What kind of response did you get?
The Vice President. Well, I think--I guess the way I would
characterize it is, they are uniformly concerned about the situation in
Iraq, in particular about Saddam Hussein's failure to live up to the
U.N. Security Council resolutions, especially number 687, that he
pledged to at the end of the war, that said he'd get rid of all of his
weapons of mass destruction.
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And they are as concerned as we are when they see the work that he
has done to develop chemical and biological weapons and his pursuit of
nuclear weapons, the past history that we all know about, in terms of
his having used chemicals. If you haven't seen it, there's a devastating
piece in this week's New Yorker magazine on the 1988 use by Saddam
Hussein of chemical weapons against the Kurds. If the article is
accurate--and I've asked for verification, if we can find it--he ran a
campaign against the Kurds for 17 months and bombed literally 200
villages and killed thousands and thousands of Iraqis with chemical
weapons.
That's not the kind of man we want to see develop even more deadly
capacity, for example nuclear weapons. And my experience is that our
friends in the region are just as concerned about those developments as
we are. And I went out there to consult with them, seek their advice and
counsel, to be able to report back to the President on how we might best
proceed to deal with that mutual problem, and that's exactly what I've
done.
The President. I think one other point that the Vice President made,
which is a good point, is that this is an administration that when we
say we're going to do something, we mean it; that we are resolved to
fight the war on terror--this isn't a short-term strategy for us; that
we understand history has called us into action, and we're not going to
miss this opportunity to make the world more peaceful and more free.
And the Vice President delivered that message. I was grateful that
he was able to do so. It's very important for these leaders to
understand the nature of this administration so there's no doubt in
their mind that when we speak, we mean what we say, that we're not
posturing. We don't take a bunch of polls and focus groups to tell us
what--how to--to what we ought to do in the world. When we say we want
to defend freedom, we mean it. And the Vice President did a fine job of
delivering that message.
Part of any foreign policy--good foreign policy--is to consult with
our friends and allies. We've told our friends and allies we'll do so on
all kinds of issues. And the Vice President did that in a really good
way.
Terrorist Attack in Lima, Peru
Q. Mr. President, different part of the world, a car bomb exploded
in Lima last night, killing nine people. Are you concerned about your
safety?
The President. No, I'm still going. I'm sure President
Toledo will do everything he can to make
Lima safe for our trip. Two-bit terrorists aren't going to prevent me
from doing what we need to do, and that is to promote our friendship in
the hemisphere. Our neighborhood is important to us; Peru is an
important country. President Toledo has been a reformist, obviously
worked within the democratic system. And you bet I'm going.
Note: The President spoke at 8:16 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White
House. In his remarks, he referred to U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle
East Gen. Anthony Zinni, USMC (Ret.); Chairman Yasser Arafat of the
Palestinian Authority; and President Alejandro Toledo of Peru. The Vice
President referred to President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. The President
also referred to the Tenet plan, the Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire and
security plan of June 13, 2001, negotiated by Director of Central
Intelligence George J. Tenet, and the Mitchell report, the Report of the
Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee, issued April 30, 2001.
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